


Louder Than Words

by ignite



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M, michael's singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 00:10:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7954444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignite/pseuds/ignite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though a disturbing hush had fallen over the world, Michael Jones refused to stay quiet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Louder Than Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old story from my Tumblr. I improved it a little.
> 
> The idea came to me like 2 years ago, as I was thinking about the fact that Michael basically never shuts up.

They'd done it a hundred times before -locate a house that looked mostly intact, break down the door, look for supplies. They had only met other looters twice, and both times they'd had the upper hand thanks to their quiet feet and Geoff wielding the gun without hesitation. 

This time, Geoff had barely put a food inside when he met the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his forehead. Gavin let out a scream while everyone else behind Geoff froze in place.

At the other end of the gun was a boy with glasses and a beanie over unruly auburn hair. He was singing. Singing “It’s the end of the world as we know it…” under his breath, barely a whisper.

Geoff had met a good number of unstable people, and honestly he couldn't blame them -a zombie apocalypse seemed like an appropriate time to lose your mind. Nowadays, survivors got killed by humans more often than by zombies, and almost always for ridiculous reasons. 

So Geoff stilled completely, held his breath, tried to calm his crazy loud heartbeat, and very purposefully did not do anything threatening. The boy's arm was frighteningly steady, his eyes assessing the five men stuck in the doorway like deer in headlights. He looked like he was debating whether to kill them or not and Geoff would rather give him a reason not to shoot for now. And if he did decide to shoot anyway... Well. Ryan or Jack would pick up Geoff's gun and deal with it. Geoff had long since accepted his role as the group's shield and first line of defense.

And then Ray’s voice, shaking with nerves, joined in on the chorus. 

“It’s time I had some time alone,” he sang.

The boy’s eyes snapped to him, head barely poking over Geoff’s shoulder. Ryan took Ray’s hand and squeezed, an incentive for him to shut up and not alienate the crazy guy with the gun. But for some crazy reason that only he could understand, Ray didn’t stop, and together with the boy they sung a few more lines of this impromptu duo at a nervous pace. 

There was a short pause then, before the boy with the glasses laughed and lowered his gun.

“Can’t avoid the classics, can you?” he said. He tucked the gun into his belt and stepped aside to let the five men enter the house. “I left some things on the shelves in the kitchen in case someone else needed it. Go ahead and take them. Although you guys look well fed... do you have a secret pantry somewhere? Because I'm not even gonna lie, I'm a bit hungry. You have anything to share? I can give you stuff in exchange. I have blankets. I mean nice blankets, not the cheap stuff...”

That was how Geoff, Gavin, Ryan, Ray and Jack met Michael ; that was the first time they heard his voice. It was certainly not the last.

“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“

Though a disturbing hush had fallen over the world, Michael Jones refused to stay quiet.

Six months since the other five had formed their little group and had been walking away from Austin, looking for some imaginary safer place. They had seen so many destruction and death, they’d had to avoid so many trigger-happy humans and starving zombies. In the end, the silence under which humanity was suffocating had swallowed them too, and they hardly ever talked except when it was unavoidable. 

But now they had invited Michael into their group, and Michael... just never stopped.

He would talk to you, and if you ignored him he would simply pretend you didn’t. He would bug you until you answered his questions, he would talk to himself, he would talk for no reasons other than just hearing a sound.

He also knew an impressive number of songs about the end of the world. They were about natural disasters, nuclear wars, infectious diseases, godly plagues. None of them really fitted the current zombie-filled situation to a T, but they still talked of despair, hunger, cold and fright. Quite pertinent.

They all assumed Michael's singing was a coping mechanism combined with a particularly morbid sense of humor. They never asked for details. Geoff often invited Michael to shut the up, but Michael never did and Geoff always gave up. He had finally met his match in terms of stubbornness. 

It took a few week, but the constant sound of Michael's voice pushed the five others to talk again. It started with Gavin jumping into Michael's endless stream of stories from before the apocalypse, asking him questions about it. Then Jack joined in, then Ray and Geoff, and finally Ryan couldn't stop himself from participating. 

They communicated again, they shared again. They even laughed again. They came out of the shell-shocked state into which they had retreated, and the world around them, though still grey and hopeless, suddenly seemed marginally easier to navigate. Easier to survive. Just a little bit more alive.

”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“

Sleeping outside without a shelter was about the most dangerous thing you could do in this day and age. And it was what they found themselves forced to do at the end of a dreary, damp day in Fall. The night had fallen so fast, they were in unknown territory, and exhausted to their core. They stopped in the open, in complete darkness, too afraid of what a campfire would attract.

They huddled together under their three thick blankets, barely able to see each other, desperately trying to ward off the cold and the fear.

Nothing moved for a while. Then Michael’s soft voice rose from the silence.

"Is this the new year or just another night, is this the new fear or just another fright…”

The words, nobody paid attention to them. They simply listened to the voice as it wrapped around them, gentle, reassuring, warm like yet another blanket. None of them slept for more than a few minutes as they held weapons tight in their hands and kept their eyes on the still darkness around them, and Michael sang most of the night away.

“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”

“If you’ve got to sing, why don’t you sing happier songs?” asked Ryan as they were walking on a seemingly never-ending road in the middle of nowhere. A few cars lay abandoned here and there. “I could do with some happier lyrics, honestly.”

Michael shrugged without answering, but the next time a song breached his lips, it was Eye of the Tiger. The six men soon found themselves walking to the rhythm of the beat. At the first line of the chorus, Ray and Gavin started on the air-guitar.

At the front of their procession Geoff suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

“What’s happening?” asked Ryan.

Gavin, Michael and Ray stopped singing and gesticulating as they approached to see what had halted Geoff’s steps. There were two bodies lying in the ditch by the side of the road, a big one and a smaller one, hugging each other. They were fresh. They would attract zombies soon.

They turned away. They walked faster, leaving death far away behind them. Michael never finished the song. The lyrics of victory and triumph stayed stuck in his throat.

As they finally stopped for the night, climbing into one of the discarded cars for shelter, Ryan sat by his side and brought him close.

“I get it now,” he simply said. “Can you sing something else? Please?”

Michael took the gun and the first shift of the night, and his voice lulled them to an uneasy sleep.

“Have you heard what they said on the news today, have you heard what is coming to us all…”

“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”

He sung the day Geoff died. 

They'd been looking at this farm for a few days, they thought it was empty. It looked mostly intact, and it looked completely still. It would have been ridiculous to ignore it.

Geoff was at the front, holding the gun. They stopped as the sound of steps from upstairs reached them, and as slowly and calmly as they could, they turned around as one and tried leaving unseen.

The gun shot came out of nowhere, and the following sound of a body hitting the floor chilled their blood. Michael’s first instinct was to run out and hide inside a rusting tractor parked just outside, Ray right on his heels. Gavin joined them not long after, so utterly panicked out of his mind that Michael and Ray had to grab him and put a hand over his mouth to shut him up.

They waited for a while as they heard more gun shots, voices screeching incoherently, Ryan and Jack shouting. Michael hugged Gavin’s trembling body against him and rocked him ever so slightly, and a song spilled out of his lips as tears sprung from his eyes.

“And everything that’s calm will turn to madness, and all of your false tears will come whirling down the years…”

When Ryan and Jack appeared at the window of the tractor, they looked ready to keel over, blood on Ryan's hands and Jack's hoodie. Michael stopped singing.

They silently climbed inside alongside the lads and curled up on the rotting seats, and the five of them stayed here as the hours passed and the day bled into night. They could hear their own trembling breaths, hear Gavin's choked sobs, hear the frantic rustling as Ryan desperately tried to wipe the blood off his hands.

It only took one day for Michael to sing again, under his breath, discreetly, too softly for anyone but him to understand the lyrics, and one more for him to start talking again. But no amount of encouragement would bring the four others out of their mutism this time.

“You know if you won’t talk,” said Michael after days of trying, “I’ll talk for you.”

And he found himself being the one and only sound any of them would hear for days on end, lone little voice in a world silent as a grave.

He refused to stop, clinging to the one thing he could do that still made him feel human and grounded.

He would never stop.

“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”

“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”“”

list of the songs Michael sang, in order :   
R.E.M. - The End Of The World  
Switchfoot - The Blues  
Iron Maiden - The Wild Wind Blows  
The Pogues - The Sun and the Moon

Title is from Louder Than Words by Les Friction


End file.
